About Me

If you saw me on the street you probably wouldn’t give me a second look. People always say they recognize me from somewhere, but can never place it. I am no one and everyone at the same time. And while on the surface my life may appear about as average and mundane as anyone’s, the way in which I view the world is far from normal. I thoroughly enjoy public confrontation and the awkward moments that stem from it. I am readily amused by the eccentricity, poor judgment, and general oddity of my fellow man. I sincerely appreciate all of the beauty in this world, but find true solace in the raw fallibility of mankind. I’ve established this blog to capture the essence of the world as I see it, in all its dysfunctional glory.

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Friday, September 23, 2011

Count On Science To F*ck Up A Perfectly Good Excuse For Bad Behavior

The following story appeared on MSNBC yesterday. I was intrigued by its premise so I gave it a read. I couldn’t help but chime in and give my two cents (in italics). Blame it on the alcohol? Maybe not, study suggestsBy Andrew WinnerIt’s a trap that most of us have fallen into: making a rash or regrettable decision after a few cold Coors Lights. Blame it on the booze, right? A new study out of the University of Missouri College of Arts and Sciences sheds light on how the brain processes mistakes in the presence of alcohol.After a few Coors Lights? Speak for yourself dude – any drinker worth his salt can down at least a dozen silver bullets without even getting buzzed (that’s why they call it Colorado water). You must be a pussy (with a name like Winner why am I not surprised). I can already tell you have no business writing this story. In a finding that runs contrary to previous thinking, it turns out we still know we are making mistakes when intoxicated. We just don’t care as much.Reminds me of the famous line from Office Space: “The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care”. Translated for applicability to this story: “It’s not that I actually find her attractive, it’s that I just don’t care.” Following me, Andy?“I suppose the main implication is that people shouldn’t assume ‘I was drunk’ is a good excuse for doing things one knows he or she shouldn’t be doing,” wrote the study’s author, Dr. Bruce Bartholow of the University of Missouri, in an e-mail. The study will be published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.Doing stupid shit when you’re drunk? What’s abnormal about that?“It’s not as though people do drunken things because they’re not aware of their behavior, but rather they seem to be less bothered by the implications or consequences of their behavior than they normally would be,” Bartholow added.Yeah – haven’t you ever heard the phrase “it seemed like a good idea at the time”. Drunks invented that.Bartholow set out to bring clarity to an area of ambiguity in brain research: Does the strength of the ERN – the error-related negativity “alarm signal” set off in the brain by mistakes – change with the presence of alcohol? Research out of the Netherlands in 2002 had concluded that intoxication reduced the brain’s capacity to detect errors.Irresponsible drunks everywhere thank you, the Netherlands.However, Bartholow’s study challenged that assumption by asking if it’s possible that the ability to detect errors actually remained the same – but alcohol changed the brain’s reaction to those errors.Come on Bruce – that’s just crazy talk.“I wondered whether alcohol's effects on error processing were less about reducing awareness of errors and more about reducing the distress that normally accompanies errors,” Bartholow said.Another fine example of curiosity and science f*cking things up.In the study, a group of 67 people aged 21-35 were split into three groups. While two of the three groups received a placebo alcohol (10-proof vodka-tonics), or just plain tonic, the third (lucky?) group received alcoholic beverages -- 100-proof vodka-tonics. The participants in the alcohol group got to a blood-alcohol level of about .09 percent -- just over the legal driving limit. The other two groups remained at a .00 percent blood-alcohol level throughout the study. All participants were then tasked with completing a challenging computer task.Would surfing the net for porn be considered a challenging computer task?Bartholow’s team noted that while all the groups made mistakes, those which had consumed alcohol were less likely to notice their errors. The alcohol drinkers were also less likely to slow down after an error.Wait, you lost me. Are we talking about drunk sex or challenging computer tasks?However, in addition to monitoring their performance on the computer, participants also measured the subjects’ mood. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the alcohol group reported feeling less negative. (Hilariously, the group which received the placebo had a more negative mood.) Using these measurements, Bartholow’s team was able to demonstrate a correlation between the mood of the participants and the strength of the ERN. A less negative mood equaled a less severe ERN.Alcohol = happiness. Now you’re on to something science boy.For the study author, the findings represent an important step in understanding how alcohol affects the brain – and the mistakes made by people who have had a couple brew-dogs. Further avenues of research could include testing whether drunk people can be sufficiently motivated to care about their mistakes (and if so, would their brain responses be similar to those of sober individuals).Andrew, did you seriously just refer to beer as brew-dogs? Let me guess: you were head of the chess club in college, spent the better part of your 20’s living with mom & dad (playing World of Warcraft in their basement), didn’t get laid til your 30’s, and to this day secretly prefer wine coolers to beer? Okay, 3 out of 4 then? Delta Bravo city. Also did you just say it would be a good idea to research whether drunk people can be motivated to care about their mistakes? I’ll save you some time here, Andy: No.Another possible avenue Bartholow is pursuing is testing whether the error-related brain activity differences observed in the study will produce changes in other parts of the brain as people attempt to correct their mistakes. In what promises to be endless entertainment for the research assistants, Bartholow is pursuing the use of an fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging – or scans that measure brain activity) machine to take measurements of the study participants.Why bother? I say put down the microscope and have a cocktail, Bruce. While you’re stuck in your lab testing out stupid hypotheses no one gives a shit about, and Andrew’s holed up in his parent’s basement writing stupid articles on subject matter way outside of his wheelhouse, the rest of us are out here in the real world boozing it up, making bad decisions, and enjoying every minute of it.